How much does the chief earn – CEO pay at CROs fiscal 2011

Outsourcing-Pharma looks at the wages of the remaining big four public CROs and how they compare to operating income.

After their full-year results the big four public CROs (contract research organisations) – Charles River Laboratories, Covance, Icon, and Parexel – posted the earnings of their CEOs in regulatory filings.

Joe Herring, CEO of Covance, was the big winner, with an uptick in salary helping his total earnings to increase by one-fifth to $7.2m (€5.4m). An uptick in earnings by James Foster, CEO of Charles River, brought the total up to $5.5m and overturned the 2010 fall, when the CRO posted an operating loss.

Herring and Foster both run CROs with preclinical assets and earn notably more than their peers at Icon and Parexel. Josef von Rickenbach, CEO of Parexel, earned a total of $3.8m in the CRO’s fiscal 2011, which ended in June.

Peter Gray, the former CEO of Icon, earned the least, $1.7m, but his CRO also trails the others in net sales. Gray stepped down as CEO of Icon in September but his earnings are used for the purpose of the visualisation.